


Everything Ends

by theprydonian_archivist



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Character Study, Dark, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Episode: s04e16 The Waters of Mars, M/M, Serial: s134 Planet of Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 00:38:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7198241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprydonian_archivist/pseuds/theprydonian_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grief can destroy the best of souls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Written after "The Waters of Mars" and before "The End of Time."
> 
> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Prydonian](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Prydonian). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [The Prydonian collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/theprydonian/profile).

_Everything has its time and everything ends._ The Doctor had believed that once, truly believed. He could pinpoint the exact time he first became a heretic: witnessing the Master’s corpse consumed on the pyre. Then, right then, he loathed the temporal flow that brought him to that moment. He would have broken the laws of time, absconded with Jack’s vortex manipulator and abused his TARDIS as the Master had to construct a paradox machine and bring the Master back, if only the idea had occurred to him. At the time, however, such a thought was unable to take shape in his mind. He was too thoroughly immersed in the principles of the Time Lords, taught from the cradle never to break the time stream, alter fixed points, or cross his own timeline, until rules became habit and habit became instinct.

The Doctor could kick himself for not realizing earlier that the Master was _right_ , oh, not about everything. The Master’s desire for petty conquest over primitive worlds was as incomprehensible to the Doctor as it ever was, but the Master understood power and life and that acceptance was just cowardice.

Once, half his lifetimes ago, watching the Master burn had killed the Doctor. Now it kept him alive in bitter opposition with fate.

He had a TARDIS. He knew where to find a vortex manipulator. Time and space and grief for things lost were his to conquer.


End file.
